Neal
Macrossan has appealed the verdict of the Comptroller-General Of
Patents, Designs and Trade Marks that his invention cannot be
patented. The case has now been heard at the Court of Appeal on
appeal from the High Court and is awaiting a verdict.
Macrossan invented a system designed to help people fill out the
series of forms required to register a company in the UK. It is
offered from his site, www.ukcorporator.co.uk/.
To win a patent registration in the UK an invention must be
capable of an industrial application, be new and involve an
inventive step. Inventions which are solely for performing mental
acts, carrying out business methods and computer programs are
specifically excluded from patentability.
Macrossan's invention was denied a patent by the UK Patents
Office. He took his case to the High Court which agreed with the
Patents Office, ruling that the application should fail both on the
grounds of being the automation of a mental act and of it being a
program for a computer.
Macrossan then applied to the Appeals Court and in that case the
Comptroller-General of Patents was represented but Macrossan, an
Australian resident, neither appeared himself nor was represented
at the hearings. He relied instead on written submissions.
"What more is this apart from a programmed computer, a
programmed computer in the modern sense of being connected to the
internet?" said the Comptroller-General's counsel Colin Birss.
"This is, we would submit, plainly excluded subject matter. It is
not really more than a computer program."
Birss said that he did not want to prove that the system was a
scheme for a mental act, that showing that it was a computer
program should be enough. "I respectfully submit that it is plain
as a pikestaff that Mr Macrossan's patent does not need any
definition of a mental act exclusion to say that it is not
patentable. It is quite obvious because it is software," said
Birss.
The case was heard because Lord Justice Jacob ruled in a
pre-trial hearing that Macrossan had a 'real prospect of
success'. "The issue of exclusions is of public interest,
sufficiently uncertain and thus worthy of consideration by the
court," wrote Jacob in his decision to grant the right of
appeal.
The parties await the ruling of the judges, Lord Justice
Chadwick, Lord Justice Jacob and Lord Justice Neuberger.
